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If anything, it was my fault for how I acted when I was with her. I just wanted to ignore all of it for a few days. I didn’t know that it was going to cause such a mess, but I would be damned if Augustine was going to think that I would change any of it, because I wouldn’t. Not a thing.
* * *
I went outand had a couple of drinks. I was in a foul mood, and I just wanted to be alone. Being someone like me though, known by too many at times, I wasn’t able to actually get any time alone at all. Instead, I was surrounded by women that wanted to get in my pants, and men that wanted to get into my wallet. I was surrounded by snakes, and I swear at some point there were pictures taken. I didn’t think anything of it until the next morning when I woke up to a newspaper being thrown at my head.
My head hurt, the hangover was minor, but the immediate yelling that came from Augustine made sure that my head pounded as it should. She wanted to know what I had done the night before, and I just kind of looked at her for a minute. I remembered getting a few drinks, but somewhere along the lines, I lost all sense of what I was doing. I didn’t know why, I didn’t know what was going on, but it was something.
“I had a few drinks,” I told her, still not sure what she was so mad about. She kept asking me who “she” was and since I had no clue what she was talking about, I asked her. That was a big mistake. The paper that had been bounced off of my head to wake me up was more than just a prop or weapon, it was the reason. I was on the front page of the city’s newspaper, with a woman, in some kind of seemingly intimate embrace.
When I looked up, Augustine was upset, tears in her eyes, and she told me that she was going to leave for the night. It was late and I wanted to talk, not for her to run off. I couldn’t stop her though; Augustine had made up her mind. After she left, I looked at the paper in disgust. What the hell was I doing?
Everything was going from bad to worse, and I had no one to blame but myself. I should have known better than to act out in such a way. I wasn't a teenager anymore. In my defense, if I even had any, I was not used to being married. I wasn't used to having to limit my activities. For some reason though, I didn’t think that reason was going to fly very far.
At the end of the day though, I took full responsibility for it. The picture from the paper showed me practically kissing a woman and we were definitely too close for comfort. I tried putting myself in her position. How would I feel if I saw her snuggled up with some guy? I would not be happy. Just thinking about it upset me, so I could only imagine how she felt.
I figured she went to her mom’s, and I wanted to call and check on her, make sure that everything was okay. I honestly didn't think that it was going to be. It felt like my life was imploding, and Augustine had said something that really bothered me. She blamed herself for all my problems and that made me nervous. It wasn't her fault, none of it was, but I couldn’t convince her otherwise. What if she decided to take herself out of my life? That's what I was worried about the most, when she said that we never should have gotten married.
I tried to call Augustine's phone, but she didn't pick up. We hadn't been married long enough for us to be fighting like this. It made me worry about our future. Would we have one?
I went to bed, hoping that I could somehow fix the mess that I had started. I was going to do what had to be done. Augustine couldn’t stay away. We had work in the morning, and she wasn't the type to miss. I guaranteed that she would be there on time like always. Augustine was steady, like a rock. I knew that I could count on her and just because we were married, I didn't think that had changed.
42
Augustine
Iwoke up to pounding on the door and at first I thought it was Derrick. I figured that he would imagine that I was going to go home. Where else would I go? I told myself that I kept this apartment for a reason and maybe this was it. I was so mad at him; I didn't know if I was ready to talk to him yet. I would talk to him eventually, hear his explanation for what was printed in the paper, but I wasn't ready for all that just yet.
When I got to the door, I pulled it open and told Derrick that he was going to have to stop knocking so loud. I had a headache, and I knew it was from the crying I had done the night before. It had to be hidden though, I couldn't even cry out right, because I lived around too many people that would ask too many questions. Speaking of, my mom was standing there, and she had a look of worry on her face. On with the questions.
“What did you do?” she asked me with a nod to her head like she was ready to feel sorry for me. I told her that I didn't do anything because I hadn't. Maybe my ex-fiancé had created havoc in my life, but it didn't mean that Derrick had to go out and do what he did. One wrong did not make it right. Besides, my ex-fiancé doing something that caused trouble for us wasn't my fault. I didn't do it personally and I hadn't even picked him. I would take the blame for what I did, but at the moment, I wasn't the one that got pictures taken with the opposite sex and plastered all over the newspaper. Derrick was the one who had some explaining to do, not me.
“I didn't do anything, Mom, thanks for the vote of confidence,” I snapped back at her. I’d had enough and it felt like my whole life she was sitting there blaming me for something that I had nothing to do with. I had done what I was supposed to do, I had done nothing, but her suggestion hurt my feelings more than anything. I needed somebody’s shoulder to cry on, and not the constant finger pointing that I got instead.
“I'm sorry, honey, but you show up here last night out of the blue and you didn't say anything to anybody. I let you sleep. Now you need to tell me what is going on.”
It felt like she didn't care either way what was going on. She was worried about making sure that my perfect marriage was okay. I wanted to tell her that the marriage was fake, and she was the reason I had married him to begin with, so I didn't have to marry Dalian. It wasn't the most romantic thing, but it was the truth. Maybe I was just trying to set up the cause for why I was going to leave him. I didn't know if I could forgive him for whatever he had done. He was my first and I wanted him to be my only, but if he was going to cheat on me, there was no point in being married. I would rather be alone.
There was also the other problem that I had to worry about, and my mom being here trying to get information out of me was not helpful. I told her that Dalian was probably going to make it so that Derrick was going to lose his company. It meant everything to him, and I had to figure out how to save it. I needed to track down his board and all the members on it.
It wasn’t too hard to find the men that were on his board. It was a publicly traded company and everything that I needed to know about them was easy enough to find. I went to his company and had a meeting with all of them. I hoped that all I would have to do was tell them what was going on, how everything was fine, but I didn’t know. I had to try. I couldn’t let Derrick’s company go down and be taken away from him because of Dalian. It just wasn’t right, and I had to do something to change it.
The problem was that the board knew too much. When they asked me if I was a virgin and if we had had sexual intercourse before we got married, I was taken aback. I did not expect such a question and I just kind of stood there with my mouth open, feeling like an idiot. I finally did agree that I was a virgin, and we didn't have sex until several days after our marriage actually. That seemed to matter and make a difference, though I was not even sure why.
“Derrick didn't come here to get you to do this, did he?”
I agreed that he didn't and I was still annoyed by the whole thing. I promised that I would sign whatever was needed to absolve Derrick of any problems. I could imagine what they were worried about. They were worried about a lawsuit, but we were married, there was no more time for lawsuits. They wanted me to sign something saying that I would never sue them for it, and I agreed. At the same time, I quit as well. I couldn't work for a company like this. I knew that I didn't want to.
As I was leaving, I started to realize that there were other things that needed to change as well. One of them was my marriage. I didn't know what I was thinking, but this obviously wasn't going to work. Maybe if we would have met differently, but at the end of the day, I had pressured him into it.
That wasn't enough of a change though, I needed to keep going with rearranging my life. I couldn't go back home, not to be surrounded by my judgmental family and my mother who was going to tell me it was my fault. What had I done? That's what she had asked me. How could I walk back into that with any sort of sanity? The short answer was I couldn’t, and I wasn't going to.
So, I did what I thought was necessary, and I packed up a bag and took off. I didn't go back home to my husband, which would soon not be my husband, and I certainly wasn't going home to stay with my family. They had caused me enough drama in my life. I needed some time to figure things out, be on my own. I needed to figure out what it was that I wanted.
After I found a place to stay that wasn't too expensive, I tried to think about how different my life was going to be now. I had left the “perfect” life. That's what it was with me and Derrick, but how true was it that perfection was just façade? Derrick made all these promises and said that he loved me, but at the end of the day, he had just disappointed me like everyone else. I didn't know if I was going to be able to forgive myself for him. I felt like an idiot. I guess it was because I needed somebody to love me so badly that I believed everything he said. It was all a lie, obviously, but I still wanted to believe it was true. I was happier believing a lie than knowing that we weren't really meant to be together.
I was nervous filing the divorce papers because I was sure that he would contest them or something. I got a different phone because he would not stop calling. I get it, he wanted some closure, but I wasn't quite ready to give it to him yet. I knew he deserved it, it was my intention to give it to him eventually, I just wasn't there yet. Since I was a few counties over, I made it like I didn't know where he was. I was made to file paperwork with the local paper for a couple of weeks because he had the right to defend himself. I had no problem with that obviously, I just didn't want to confront him. I didn't want to have to explain to him why I had left. It was complicated and it wasn't just about the picture of the woman. There was so much more to it than that. I had done exactly what I feared to do. I’d fallen in love and forgotten everything else.
Even though I told myself that it was better without him, it was hard to convince myself of that, especially late at night when all I could do was think about him. It wasn't right, us staying together, him having to go to such lengths for me. It just wasn't right, and I hoped that we could both move on from this.
